virtualization

Are you still clinging to your trusty old server that’s gracefully aging towards obsolescence? Perhaps you are still running important applications on older servers with old operating systems because they’re “good enough” and still “work fine.” In many respects, your old server is like a trusty old car. You know where the kinks are and it gets you where you need to go. But lurking below the surface of that trusty old car, and your old server, can be hidden risks that can result in very big problems, even dangers, usually when least expected.

So you’ve made up your mind that you’re going to move workloads onto a service provider’s infrastructure. Now you’re faced with a big question: should I rebuild my environment while migrating to avoid more disruption later? Here are eight pros and a few cons to consider when making your decision.

Hybrid cloud can be a game-changing move for your business. As an IT leader, you need the right information to make tough decisions about where to run workloads and how to manage your virtual environment. Should you go big or start small with hosting? How do you maintain your vision?

Most system administrators are not only concerned with improving IT capabilities, but also how to best transition to a new environment. “How do I get my app, website, database or development environment onto a new infrastructure, with the least amount of hassle?”

When I became an infrastructure architect at a large, privately owned consumer-goods store, I was so excited to be on the technology leading edge, a thought leader, and a trendsetter. I imagined all of the cool, new things I’d get to use, build, design, and possibly deploy. It was like playing with Legos or Lincoln Logs, except this was the real world and people were going to consume solutions that I designed so I knew they had better be good.

A couple months ago we acquired the team behind ZeroVM, the lightweight open source application hypervisor. At that time we promised that more was coming soon – and now we have started to say what some of the plans are for this new technology.

We’re three and a half years into OpenStack® and there is still confusion about exactly what OpenStack is, how to compare OpenStack to other cloud platforms, and specific use cases for OpenStack. I find myself having the same conversations over and over again in an attempt to debunk the myths and misperceptions in the market. There are a number of them, but to help people who are still getting up to speed with OpenStack, let’s focus in on the three largest.

Developers have been buzzing lately about how virtualization containers can boost scale while lowering costs. We are big fans of containers and the ways that they simplify the deployment and management of cloud applications. We think the next step is containerizing and virtualizing the application, not just the machine.